110% MONKEY EVERY TIME ALL THE TIME JUST CANT STOP THE MONKEYLocation: London

Total posts: 3149

Posted:29th Sep 2005i taught a three year old how to spin a stick in an antispun figure eight the other day. It was really easy. I just showed him how to do it (a pretty simple motion of the hand) and he did it. He thought it was "ok"...

Showing or talking about the same move with grown up people who spin stuff really well gets me very different reactions. They often seem amazed by this fairly simple movement, sometimes almost afraid of it, and usually totally certain that they won't be able to do it, at least not without a lot of effort.

And those experiences have made me think about:

How much of "difficulty" in learning a movement is to do with how it is percieved?

Maybe what makes a lot of moves "Technical" is how (and by who) they're discovered rather than how hard it is to make your body & poi move the way they need to move?

Is being "amazed" by a move bad for your learning it?Wouldn't reacting in a more underwhelmed way mean that you'd be able to pick it up faster?

Is saying "i can't get my head around that" just an self-fulfilling excuse?

ALSO

How much of the "difficulty" in learning a move is purely having to override habits that you've formed?

Is there a way to learn without forming habits that you later have to break?

"Switching between different kinds of chuu chuu sometimes gives this "urgh wtf?" effect because it's giving people the phi phenomenon."

I missed one and it stuffed my whole set of patterns i hope you guys are lucky enuf to have good teachers who instill good drills and patterns.)

I would post a vid of me latest basic pattern(s) but dont want to seem arrogant. You guys would just laugh anyway

There are alot of bad things with patterns and muscle mem though because after i drill a move 1'000'000 times and have it set i find it really really hard to to get the reverse! If i learn the reverse and forward at roughly the same time or before i get one set, then i never find it a problem.

Do you guys find that?

Also people have told me to go back to basics (many times) but just what ARE the basics?

I mean there are the hop basics but im recently finding a whole lot of basic combos that are not in the hop list... its much fun! Im presuming alot of you would have already nailed them...but to me its all new

Posted:10th Oct 2005i have found the main problem with teaching anyone, children and adults alike, is the word "can't" although this only seems to spring up when teaching the 2 basics, butterfly and weave, when they grasp these, they understand that 90% of what else you can do is a variation along these 2 moves, and since they have got these, then adapting them to the variations must be possible. i have found Adults get this concept better than children, as mostly children see each move as a different entity (not all of them mind you) and so get back to the "Can't" metality if they are finding a move a little tricky.

Best 2 things i alwasy tell anyone that asks to learn 1) you will only ever hit yourself if you think you're gonna hit yourself (which i have discovered is not entirely true, but mostly)and 2) If you can see it, you can copy it, so practice makes perfect (basically If i can do it, you can do it, you just need to think about it a bit more)

Posted:11th Oct 2005dragon I wouldnt sweat the 1,000,000 thing nixposted.. I'm sure that means something to someone but you can demonstrate nonconscious (implicit) learning in less than 100 blocks.. regardless of what they are.. so it means in less than 100 times performing a pattern you can implicitly learn that pattern..

the hard part is explicitly learning it.. because being conscious of how to do it and explcitly learning it are two different things.. (though I'm sure some of the psych community might disagree with that), but its true.. the implicit stuff we do in our lab here (as well as many other schools) has shown that the degree to which someone explcitly tries to do something (i.e they know how to do it and they try it based on their know how) it interferes with what their body knows implicitly.. and so even though your body learns to do it in less than 100 tries, YOU happen to be hindering that process.. and getting the two to work together is a complex prcoess noone has uncovered yet.. Which stems a lot from the the fact that there is much disagreement in what implicit realy is... is it a seperate system?, is it a different type of learning?, is it just nonconscious?, etc and so forth...

a lot fo this stuff seems counter intuitive, but it highlights precisely a lot of the variation we have.. "you should flow" (implicit spinning) "you should work on routines." or "think your war through a move when practicing" (explicit learning).. "the more I think about it, the more I screw up.." or "I cant do it a move unless I understand it completely.." (conflict between the two learning styles).. "I've practised for about 500 hoursand all I can do is this lousy 4bt ttn and some hop basics" or "I've practiced 500 hours, and I can do everything here" (the complexity of the working relationship between learning styles, combined with the effects of talent) but then again.. some people argue that getting the two learning styles to work together in a particualr area IS talent.. so

More useless information courtesy of Rev...Confusing the masses, one post at a time..."Obviously, you're not a golfer.."- The Dude "Buy the ticket... Take the ride..." -Raoul Duke "FEMA has never done catastrophe planning..."-Michael Brown

Posted:18th Apr 2006 Its just the time you need to spent with the move to say, "I did it, huray." There are moves you learn pretty fast. As time pass, you colect them and found other, more complicated and than, than agian.

Its very interesting that no matter the time's passing, you can find moves so easy to do, you never think about before.

As well as very, very complicated combinations and better new moves and new ways of dancing.

Posted:18th Apr 2006I can do an atom where the poi are traveling at eachother thru space you speed one up to cut just behind the head of the slower one, I usually start buzzsaw butterfly and then go more wall plane with my right hand keeping left arm buzzsaw, you can also do repeatable hayperloops on that weird 45* plane. I figured out a split time butterfly hyperloop today, it seems that we are limited by our imaginations and what other people tell us much more then what is really limiting ourselves. Have you seen the reverse waistwrapped turn it is so beautifull, I have to learn it and I will because I have seen it so I know its possible. have a good day.

Posted:13th May 2006I love discussions like this.. it is a very interesting subject.

Here's an interesting example which will probably seem more extreme to you than it would if you were part of the particular subculture. What do you think is the relative difficulty of these two yo-yo trick/combos?

Why? Because the three tricks making up the Three Seven combo (Pop n Fresh, Boingy Boing, and Mach 5) are old tricks that people have had plenty of time to master. On the other hand, "slack" style tricks are relatively new and Slack Trapeze was chosen as a representative of that new style.

So it worked as a way to whittle down entries into the freestyles, but if you step back and look at it more objectively, it seems kind of crazy for them to be in the same list. For someone learning to yo-yo from scratch, I'd think Slack Trapeze would be easier to learn than either Pop n Fresh or Boing Boing (on their own.. let alone in a combo). Boingy especially can really mess with people's heads when learning it due to the pure timing involved.

So, whenever a new trick or style comes out, I think it is really important to take a step back and ask yourself if it is really that hard or if it is just new. It makes a difference especially when you are teaching someone new the "basics". It can be surprising just how basic a lot of new things can be..

Shawn (the guy who needs to go and learn all this anti-spin atomic isolations.. )

Posted:19th Aug 2008Heres a conversation I really think needs to be closer to the top of the lists, so I'll bump it. ^_^

Adding to that, I tend to teach split time, same time, same direction, opposites, then go into the idea of antispin and spin and say that all other movements are constructed out of these base elements.

Most people will go "err... what?" and by the end of the lesson understand everything they've been doing relates and then a few weeks later gain a better understanding.

I also tend to play down the differences between same direction and opposites, because they're not really different... I try to emphasise that if thought of each poi individually that the relative placement of the other one is only a matter of pattern.

Apologies for the convoluted post, but I'm off to a class now... if anyone is confused, just prod me in this thread for more discussion around the topic.

Posted:13th Sep 2008I'll bump this again and add that the whole "wow!" Thing is beneficial to learning but its got to be "Wow! I want to be able to do THAT!" Rather than "Wow! I'll never be able to do that!"

I learned alone and just copied all the stuff I saw being done by those much more awesome than I am. I think I've had pretty accelerated learning because of this, I've never really thought of anything as being beyond my reach entirely... but if something seemed like I wasnt getting anywhere, I moved onto something else that was difficult but I had more progress in, then returned to that which I had struggled with earlier and found it was slightly easier... all the skills in poi tend to cross over with one another... Isolations are a skill to be learned on their own, but it still helps with everything else...

Ramble ramble ramble, I'll revisit this again when I have time to read through all the posts and process my thoughts better.

But this is a VERY important thread. I can't stress this enough. Potentially even sticky-worthy... or maybe I should just make a tutorial for the library incorporating this..

Posted:3rd Apr 2009I agree with you greatly aston, expanding on the various 'simple' moves can hugely improve on your quality of spinning. by just playing with all the easy things, i know personally at least, it opens so many little doors and makes spinning in all these new and interesting styles and positions. having all these new options makes your spinning much more natural and flowing.

"you know there are no trophys for doing silly things in real life yeah pete?" said ant "you wont get a 'listened to ride of the valkyries all the way to vietnam' trophy"

*proud owner of the very cute fire_spinning_angel, birgit and neon shaolin*